Coach Jay Wright has Villanova Wildcats ready for Big East tournament

Villanova's Darrun Hilliard II lines up a free throw during the second half of an NCAA college basketball game against Marquette, Sunday, March 2, 2014, in Philadelphia. Villanova won 73-56. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

PHILADELPHIA — As he walked off the court following Villanova’s 100-81 loss to Creighton Feb. 16, Jay Wright figured any chance Villanova had of winning a Big East regular-season title was gone.

The Wildcats limped home from Omaha a half-game behind the Bluejays with six games to play, five for Creighton. Even though the Bluejays had to play three of their last five on the road and Villanova was at home for four of its final six games, the odds were in Creighton’s favor, and Wright knew it.

“I didn’t think (the Bluejays) would lose,” Wright said.

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Neither did anyone else, but they did, twice.

Creighton fell to Xavier and Georgetown while the Wildcats ran the table to claim their first outright Big East regular-season title in 33 years and clinch the top seed for the Big East tournament, which begins Wednesday at Madison Square Garden in New York. Third-ranked Villanova (28-3 overall, 16-2 Big East) does not play until Thursday afternoon, when it gets the winner of the game between No. 8 Seton Hall (15-16, 6-12) and No. 9 Butler (14-16, 4-14).

However, this is not your daddy’s Big East tourney. There’s no Syracuse, Connecticut, Pittsburgh, Louisville, Cincinnati, Notre Dame or Rutgers. Butler, Creighton and Xavier have taken their place. Yet that does not take away anything from the tournament for Wright.

It’s still the Big East tournament. It’s still the Garden and it’s still New York.

“This tournament has always been one of my favorite times of the year,” Wright said. “Everybody at Villanova, fans, players, everybody, just loves going to New York, loves being at the Garden and we’re really looking forward to it.”

And Villanova is will take the same approach in New York that it always has, regardless of who’s in the Big Apple or the fact that the third-ranked Wildcats (28-3 overall, 16-2 Big East) can secure a No. 1 seed for the NCAA Tournament by winning the conference tournament title.

They’re just looking ahead to the next game.

“I think a lot of coaches have different philosophies on conference tournaments,” Wright said. “I remember (former Connecticut coach) Jim Calhoun told me one time, ‘We love this tournament, but it isn’t the big one. You want to win the big one.’

“For us, we don’t look at it as anything after. We look at it as we have a chance to play in a great tournament, a great 10-team tournament and let’s try to win the tournament. We make it that simple. If we win the tournament, great; if we don’t win the tournament what’s next? We get to play in another tournament. It’s that simple to us. We really try to keep everything simple so we can concentrate on playing the game and what we have to do basketball-wise.”

The Big East tourney may lack the star power it had when Syracuse, UConn, Pitt and Louisville were part of the conference, but Wright says that does not mean it’s going to be easy. The conference does have the fourth best RPI, according to Jerry Palm of CBSSports.com and the league has three teams (Villanova, Creighton and Xavier) ranked in the top 50 of the RPI released by the NCAA Monday and three more (Providence, Georgetown and St. John’s) between 53 and 57.

Butler took Villanova to overtime in its Big East debut. Villanova also needed OT to beat sixth-seeded Marquette and two extra sessions to get past No. 4 Providence at the Dunkin Donuts Center. The Wildcats also had to force two turnovers in the last 34 seconds to escape with a 57-54 victory over St. John’s at the Wells Fargo Center.

On the flip side, Creighton is the only team above .500 against teams ranked in the top 25 of the RPI (2-1). The Blue Jays (6-3) and Wildcats (5-3) over .500 against teams ranked in the RPI top 50. As a league, the Big East is 10-44 against the top 25 in the RPI, 26-62 versus the top 50 teams and 43-40 against teams ranked from 51-100.

(It’s) still very, very competitive from top to bottom,” Wright said. “If Butler and Seton Hall are the two bottom teams in the league, there’s no one in the country that would want to play either one of those teams for a one-and-done game.”

That will be Villanova’s task in New York. If the Wildcats get past Butler or Seton Hall, a showdown with Providence or St. John’s, two teams in dire need of help, according to the bracketology experts, looms in the semifinals. And if Villanova can win twice, a potential rematch with No. 14 Creighton awaits in the championship game.

We all know how the first two meetings turned out.

“We’ll see them again,” guard Darrun Hilliard said. “Hopefully, it will be a different outcome, but we’ll be prepared for whoever we got in the Big East tournament and move on from there.”

Since that second loss to Creighton, when the Bluejays became the first team to hang 100 on the Wildcats since Georgetown put up 103 in 2010, the focus has been on defense and it has paid off. In the last six games, Villanova has allowed an average of 61 points per game and limited the opposition to 38 percent shooting overall and 35 percent from 3-point range.

“Our defense is getting better,” Wright said. “They’re taking more pride in it. I think the second Creighton game taught them that we’re a good offensive team, but you’re not going to beat the best teams just scoring. We’ve got to get better defensively. After the first game they probably thought that was a little bit of a fluke. After they got beat the second time, I think it woke them up.”

And set the Wildcats on a path to win the regular-season title and earn the top seed in the Big East tournament, something that did not seem possible following a 19-point whipping by Creighton less than a month ago.

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NOTES: More honors for the Wildcats. Hilliard and sophomore center Daniel Ochefu were named co-winners of the Big East’s Most Improved Player award. It’s the second time the award has gone to the Wildcats. Dante Cunningham was the first in 2009. Seton Hall’s Fuquan Edwin was named the Defensive Player of the Year. Marquette’s Davante Gardner earned the Sixth Man award, while teammate Chris Otule picked up the Sportsmanship award … the Wildcats moved up to No. 3 in The Associated Press top 25. The last time Villanova was ranked that high was Feb. 15, 2010.